I can't make up my mind! My current setup is a 40d with a 24-105L and a 70-200 F4L

I sold my sigma 30mm 1.4 which I loved, but I was drawn by the L glass. Now after about a year I'm getting really tired of the F4 and the size/weight of the 24-105, and I'm considering moving back to primes. Another 30mm 1.4 plus a canon/sigma 50 1.4. Seems about right, but I don't want to get tired of them in a year and want my L glass back. Don't have the money to keep the L and buy primes. I was looking for some advice. Comments are appreciated

The buying-then-frustration-then-buying-other-stuff is symptomatic of a common photography malady having to do with looking for perfection in gear. The sooner you get off that merry-go-round the better, perhaps.

You have two fine and useful lenses, but sometimes you wish you had something smaller and simpler and lighter. Perhaps you could simply add an inexpensive 30mm lens for now and see how it goes in another few months or a year.

Often people ask "primes or zooms?" when a more useful alternative is "primes and zooms."

I am in a similar position. I have a love-hate relationship with my 24-70 (size and weight, focal length) so it now lives on my 1D3, while on my 5D3 I exclusively use a Sigma 35 f1.4 and Canon 85 f1.8, 100 f2.8L and 135 f2L.

How about grabbing the new 40mm f2.8 pancake, for under $200 how can you go wrong, for under $300 you can get the 35 f2...even the 50 f1.8 at $115 would be a possibility when budget is small...with any of these lenses you could stitch two or more images together to go wider...just a thought, another option

StillFingerz wrote:
How about grabbing the new 40mm f2.8 pancake, for under $200 how can you go wrong, for under $300 you can get the 35 f2...even the 50 f1.8 at $115 would be a possibility when budget is small...with any of these lenses you could stitch two or more images together to go wider...just a thought, another option

Keep um! Then as others have suggested invest in one or two lost cost primes for the time being 50 1.8, 40 2.8, or 35 2, would all be good and relatively cheap. The 85 1.8 is a step more expensive than those three, but also well worth the cost and still relatively cheap as well.

My primes are fast while my zooms are not
But my zooms can frame what my primes cannot.

My primes appreciate my legs, while my zooms save my feet.
Neither helps much when I need something to eat
Except its been said, photos once in awhile turn into bread.

There are times when there are walls that my back cannot move
Or people in front that I dare not reprove.
For this kind of shot I say, “Zoom thanks a lot”.

Primes often give better brokeh and zooms often leave us a bit broker
But sometimes that rule is broke and this ain’t no joke.

Zooms can be heavy and primes may be light
But primes weigh much together to equal the might.

Primes can be smaller and easy to tote,
But a zoom can be handy and help us to gloat.

Primes are more stealth as they fit in your mount
But zooms guard your health as in this one account.
You can frame your capture without walking through streams
Allowing you to rapture the shot of your dreams.

The bottom line, as I care to define
Is that we often need both to do the job every time.

But don't forget that zooms are not primarily about avoidance of use of feet. Frankly, I move around more when using a zoom than when using a prime. With a prime, there are fewer compositional options and this sometimes allows me to work more quickly with a prime.

However, the zoom allows me to control subject-foreground-background relations much more carefully than when I shoot with a single focal length prime. While keeping the primary subject the same size in the frame, I can alter what appears in front of and behind that primary subject and the size of those things.

Again, primes and zooms, at least for many of us...

MintMar wrote:
This thread needs this poem:

My primes are fast while my zooms are not
But my zooms can frame what my primes cannot.

My primes appreciate my legs, while my zooms save my feet.
Neither helps much when I need something to eat
Except its been said, photos once in awhile turn into bread.

There are times when there are walls that my back cannot move
Or people in front that I dare not reprove.
For this kind of shot I say, “Zoom thanks a lot”.

Primes often give better brokeh and zooms often leave us a bit broker
But sometimes that rule is broke and this ain’t no joke.

Zooms can be heavy and primes may be light
But primes weigh much together to equal the might.

Primes can be smaller and easy to tote,
But a zoom can be handy and help us to gloat.

Primes are more stealth as they fit in your mount
But zooms guard your health as in this one account.
You can frame your capture without walking through streams
Allowing you to rapture the shot of your dreams.

The bottom line, as I care to define
Is that we often need both to do the job every time.

If you are able to stop down I don't see a major advantage in primes these days, the good quality zooms are excellent and have the advantage of letting you frame precisely to avoid loss of pixels if you can't move about.

If you need fast lenses or a particular type of bokeh then primes might suit better

But for tripod work, well stopped down my 24-70L is as good as most primes.

It seems to me that your problem isn't so much "primes vs. zooms" as having your most-used focal lengths covered.

24mm isn't very wide on a 1.6 crop. When I shot with a 1.6 crop body, I had a 17-40 f/4L that lived on that body, and a 70-200 for when that was needed. I had little use for the lengths between 40 and 70 (and I had a 28-70 f/2.8L for those rare occasions).

The 17-40 was fairly small, light, and covered my most-used focal lengths. the 24-105 does that very well, for me, on a full frame, but not so much on a crop.

We can't tell you what you want to shoot with. But it seems to me that you're missing the shorter focal lengths, and perhaps faster glass. That can be solved with a fast prime or two, or a zoom.

dhphoto wrote:
If you are able to stop down I don't see a major advantage in primes these days, the good quality zooms are excellent and have the advantage of letting you frame precisely to avoid loss of pixels if you can't move about.

If you need fast lenses or a particular type of bokeh then primes might suit better

But for tripod work, well stopped down my 24-70L is as good as most primes.

The new 24-70 II is as good as most primes at f2.8!

The sharpness advantage of primes is largely irrelevant now unless you need every little bit you can get from, say, a 100mm macro or something.

Yes (amazing ingeneering)! I exchanged my 70-200 4.0 L IS with the 100 L Macro two years ago. And I love the 100 although I do not do macro. But I am pretty sure I will switch back. The two 70-200 Ls (2.8 IS II and 4.0 L IS) are as good at 100mm at 2.8/4.0 (or even better at the corners). And they are much more flexible. If the 24-70 4.0 L IS would offer the same IQ like the 24-70 2.8 L (and just one stop less, but with IS instead) like their 70-200 counterparts I would go 24-70 and 70-200 4.0 Ls and a 6D and it would give me what I need in 99%. No prime ever would be able to do that. Maybe I would like to add the Sigma 35mm 1.4 sooner or later, too. To encounter the night.